…They planned but Allah also plans, and Allah is the best of planners“.

Q 8:30

That fated Sunday.

No word of a lie, the weather was typical British Summer; thunderclouds gathered, darkness shadowed, silent lightening flashed and in the distance thunder rumbled. But before that, where were the phone calls or letters home asking about why I had disappeared half the year? Before I attended Bigman’s school, Dad had already enrolled me in a madrassa in Bury, it was like the Eton of the Islamic schools here in the UK. My second eldest brother was meant to go there when he himself was 11 as the admissions people were fond of his personality and sharpness of mind, but for a last minute change of heart on the part of my parents, he didn’t. This is what Dad told me. So without interview or anything, I was afforded the same courtesy by the admissions people. But this time, it was the reservations of my siblings who protested vehemently with Dad to reconsider. The school was eventually informed of this dilemma and said they would hold a seat for me for the next 2 years; plenty of time to mature enough to be able to manage away from home, and so Bigman’s school was a sort of stepping stone interim arrangement. He must have known about this arrangement, because when I didn’t turn up with the fees that semester, he must have naturally assumed I finally went off to Bury. As the years progressed I am sure I gloated about this fact to all who would listen and so it wasn’t a surprise to any of the Trifecta, nor even the Wolfpack.

Until that penultimate Sunday in August.

Alluded to in my previous post, the excuses I was going to give; sob into Bigmans robes that I couldn’t adjust in boarding, I wanted to come back to his school where the teachers adored and the Trifecta couldn’t do without me and everyone knew my name. This would tug at Bigman’s heartstrings so much so he would pat my head, wipe my tears away and lead me by the hand to my class. The fees would be handed over to him, no further questions, Dad didn’t need to know anything; fool-proof!

“Jubz. Juuubz. JUBEYR! Flippin answer me! Dad’s on the phone for you and he sounds angry man”, brother no.3 burst into my room. I was in fact listening to S Club7 whilst studying my science revision guide. I was wondering why Dad would call home to ask for me? And why was he angry? OH SHIT. “You’re busteeeed”, this time my brother was taunting me as he followed me down the corridor. How could he know? It wasn’t possible, I took care of every detail to keep this hidden from them. If this was a play, and I was the main actor, then the pathetic fallacy was perfect. The gloomy dark weather that descended upon our flat actually made it difficult to see down the corridor, and this isn’t normally the case as our long corridor is lined with three alcoves that house ceiling to floor windows that allow plenty of light to flood in. That spidey sense going off again, I felt slightly disoriented. As I turned that left at the end of the corridor towards the kitchen, that corner where so many times before I had slipped and fallen and crashed into the opposite wall, my subconscious noted that pretty much all the rooms were empty, nobody was home except my brother and I. I noted Mum was asleep in her room. “Salaam, Abba”, I offered Dad the Islamic greeting of peace. “Jubeyr? Where are you right this minute? And what are you doing?”, Dad said in his ‘outside’ speech. You know that customer service attitude parents embody when they are in the company of others; gentle and clear spoken, as opposed to the shouty crass speech they usually adopt in the house. “Er, I’m doing my homework. Why?”, I offered, polite and inquisitive. OK icl, I felt a pang of guilt as I said that. A sudden sense of foreboding descending upon me. Where did that come from? “Ok, but I am here with your headteacher, at the conference that I wanted you to accompany me to…”

WHOOOOSSSHHHHhhhhh. Pinnnnnnggggggg. Everything stopped, sound extinguished. Headmaster….Bigman…..blood drained from my upper body. Rinnnnnnnng. Rinnnnngggg…what’s that ringing? I’m on the phone so how could it be ringing? It was the blood rushing through my ears. Basically, the Monday prior Dad showed me a leaflet about a Bangladeshi Islamic conference that was to be held in East London Mosque on the Sunday (i.e this very Sunday) and I instantly recognised Bigman as one of the speakers. “Your headteacher would think very well of you if you attended, no?”, Dad persuaded me to go with him. But Daaaaad, I see him everyday at school anyway and besides I have tons of homework on Sundays, was my excuse to get out of it. Gosh, that word, homework, was like a lance through me every time. In the end Dad conceded defeat and went alone and I prayed and prayed and PRAYED their paths would not cross. Not all prayers are answered the way you expect them to be. “Jubeyr, your headteacher said the funniest thing; that you haven’t been attending his madrassa since March. I don’t understand. Here, speak to him”, Dad said in a genuinely confused voice, slightly incredulous at the prospect. Before I could hang up or feign a stroke, “Hello, Jubeyr, yes, please tell your father where you have been attending Madrassa these last 6 months, because you haven’t been coming to mine. Your father doesn’t understand where you are, and I find that, well, quite embarrassing“, he almost laughed out, as he handed the phone back to dad. “Hello, well, have you not been going out everyday to madrassa? Because I see you doing homework”, Dad asked. “N…n…erm, no”, barely audible, I felt like I had swallowed sand and cinnamon and it desiccated my tongue and mucosal lining. “Then, my dear son, where have you been all this time? And what have you been doing?”, Dad was proper perplexed. He couldn’t fathom the alternative explanation. “I….I’ve been going to the library instead, Dad”, I pathetically proffered. I was properly shit scared now. What could I say? That I was living my Dad’s worst nightmare, gallivanting around London, spending his money living life???! All the while lying to his and everyone else’s face at that. “I’ll see you at home”, Dads last words spoken quietly and deliberately.

Have you ever gone blank? Rabbit in headlights, caught red-handed, in the spotlight. I could barely walk, it was autopilot. I walked back up that dark corridor, my innards threatened to expel themselves through my gaping jaw and my heart was falling through my butt. I am finished. FINISHED. Those of you who share my culture, know exactly what I mean. There was no amount of charm I could muster to get out of this one. I still had a few £50 notes left, should I run away? I was going to donate that to charity after my fool-proof plan played out. Fool-proof? Fool-filled more like. As I sit here and reflect, I can’t help but recall Q 8:30 “…They planned but Allah also plans, and Allah is the best of planners“. OK the context was completely not applicable to my situation, but still, the moral is the same. Literally I had planned this to within a week of the school holidays, so close, so close that I tripped the finish line. Right, flight mode over time to fight mode. I knew I was going to die that night, but that didn’t mean I had to go quietly. I rallied the wall of eight; flippin waste! One was at work, one was at the gym, one was at a wedding, 2 weren’t even in the vicinity. The only ones left were brother no.3 (pfft, yeah right), and my eldest brother (whom I wouldn’t call anyway, so why would I call him now at the eve of my death? And where was he anyway?). And I am pretty sure Mum would be equally as mad as Dad. In my room, I mobilised; curtains drawn, electricals unplugged and lights turned off. I crawled up to my top bunk and and nestled as far as I could into the wall, covering my entire body and head with the duvet and tried to sleep. It was to no avail. Not only was it hot and stifling, I could barely draw breath. But all I heard was my heart thundering inside my chest and the ringing would not stop…BANG! I must have dozed or fainted because the next memory was the front door of our flat slamming shut. My room door opened and a small voice said right next to my ear “Dad’s asking for you. He told me to to ‘find the scum and bring him here’”, brother no.3 said matter-of-factly. God I wanted to smack his face. I grumbled out as if still in slumber and so he shut the door and left presumably to relay that to Dad. My room returned to its silent stupor and I opened the blanket a bit to hear what was going on. I could hear rummaging sounds in the kitchen, that familiar storage larder where old bits of furniture and house items were stored, and any sticks Mum would keep in case we needed to be whipped for misbehaving.

And then I heard them.

Footsteps. Heavy, purposeful, and unmistakably Dads. They were coming down the corridor towards my room. When you grow up in a place, you recognise the sounds and lights of that place. For example say I was up at night reading a book by torchlight when I should have been asleep, and suddenly a dim light comes through the fire window pane at the top of my bedroom door without a light switch click accompanying it, and its hue is slightly green, I would know that was the kitchen light, and someone was awake at the far end of our flat. Which meant that I could continue reading. But if the light was of a brighter and yellow hue, and there was an audible light switch sound, then that was the bathroom which was very close to my room and so it meant I needed to switch off my torch and get under the covers because whoever was using the bathroom may have seen the torch light and may come to investigate. Similarly with sounds. The corridor is like a gauntlet, with creaking floorboards and sounds of lino, and other such sounds that allowed one to locate where exactly a person was along that corridor and that translated into a certain amount of time before they would reach my room. Dad’s stride was wide, and he traversed any length of path in half the time as others. That gave me 8 or so seconds. 7…….6…..(the creaky floorboard near the step-ladder 2 meters into the corridor…5…..4….clunk went the sinking floorboard outside the bathroom, not long now……3…..2…..the low creak of the floorboard outside my older brothers room….1…..any moment now…I waited, bated breath, eyes wide, the most horrific, lip-trembling, breath-holding, body-shaking, sob-evoking, bed-wetting few moments in my life ever. He should literally be at the threshold of my room, because there was one more creaky floorboard sound left before the handle would need to turn and the door to fly open. Where was it?

Then the duvet cover flew off my body.

A hand, it grabbed at me, and slipped on clothing. It tried again, and I squeezed into the wall even more. It grabbed my foot, and pulled. I could see it in slow-motion, I was dragged to the end of my bunk and had it not been for the gathered duvet at the foot of the bed, I would have gone flying off. Somehow I ended sitting up cross-legged to face Dad, who eventually relinquished his hold. I knew it was Dad, though I couldn’t see clearly what was going on. A brief moment of relief washed over me because I noticed his hands were devoid of a cane suitable enough to inflict retribution. Right before the 5-fingered palm came out of nowhere. Blocked. With my forearm. Another came. Again blocked.

Big mistake.

In his enraged logic, Dad had taken that not as a sign not of self-defence or pure reflex, but as flagrant insubordination and audacity. Time sped up again and Dad turned round to reach for something. He saw it, displayed right there in plain sight, glossy under the room light bulb, resting on the green felt-topped Strachan Riley snooker table; our signed Ronnie O’Sullivan snooker cue. Brother no.3, bless him, must have been alerted to the commotion, I didn’t notice, and made an attempt to stop Dad from reaching for it but he was shrugged off. He then ran out the room. Thwack. After. Thwack. After. Thwack. On my right shoulder that was facing Dad. Then a few on my jaw area. Back to the shoulder, until a good five inches of the cue splintered off. Bear in mind, I was sitting there facing Dad square-on and paralysis just took over. You may be wincing at the descriptions but rest assured I did not feel a thing! 100% numb. Call it the protective effects of the adrenaline surge or whatever physiological mechanism there exists to dampen pain perception. Also I was paralysed to the spot. You should have seen the look on Dads face. No string of adjectives could convey what I stared at, paralysed by fear; he looked contorted with rage and a shock of disbelief almost crying out ‘why’ and ‘how’. From the corner of my vision, I could see brother no.3 gesticulating at me to ‘look down, look away, you idiot, anywhere, just not directly at him, show contrite, humility, ANYTHING’. Though I registered all of those things I just couldn’t move. It must have looked so odd to Dad that I was devoid of emotion, like blatant disrespect, which would have positively reinforced his anger I suppose. The next thing I recall is my eldest brother came rushing in out of nowhere and flew at my Dad to wrestle the cue – or what was left of it – off his hands. “What, Will. This. Arrgggh. Achieve. Dad! It doesn’t change what happened”, he got out through gritted teeth as he wrestled Dad, holding him at bay. Dad relinquished his hold, gave up, and defeated, he exited my room.

The Pragaymatic Muslim

• High School Chronicles (8)
• His-story (14)
• Pluralism (1)
• Prelude (2)
• Revelation (2)
• Turning point (1)

1. 

   Ahahha. Thank you dear reader. Please do forward this on to those whom you think may benefit. High school is…

2. 

   Oh can’t wait for the next part. Very captivating.

3. 

   Merci beaucoup. If it pleases you then I will strive to compose more. Please spread the word and invite others…

4. 

   I like reading these!

5. 

   […] about how to suppress and repress the dark thoughts and suicidal ideations that plagued me at the turning point…